So I have the rare privilege of having been grilled by both Newsnight anchors without being a politician which is pretty cool.

It was so much fun to take part in and it just reinforced for me what a complete quiz nerd I am (and that I really like pressing buzzers).

Presenter Kirsty Wark is one of the nicest "celebs" around, and Dictionary Corner's William Sitwell has met me five times now and failed to recognise me each time. Which is nice.

By far the oddest thing about last night (apart from seeing myself with subtitles because my mum's hearing isn't great) was when national institution Stephen Fry tweeted that he was watching the show too.

Anyway, if you watched it last night, I hope you enjoyed it, and if you didn't catch it, you can see me pull lots of odd expressions on iPlayer for the next 6 days here.

Much love to my team mates Paul and Donald, and here's to the Epicurian Fails living to fight another day doing something equally silly.

10 comments:

I'm not sure if I knew or registered Sitwell before this but the general consensus on twitter was wholeheartedly negative and to me (as many others) his role seemed rather pointless. There was nothing he pointed out Kirsty couldn't have, especially as she has some rather good kitchen cred as a recent Celebrity Masterchef finalist.Anyway, nice to see you on the telly. :o)

I feel honour-bound to stick up for Sitters here (even though he's more than capable of sticking up for himself!) as he was my boss for 4 years and has just written a rather epic book on the history of food, so I'm sure there's one or 2 facts he knows that Kirsty doesn't. Well done Mimi, it takes a lot of guts to go on a show like this - I'd panic and wibble...

Wonderful! I was out last night and have been laggardly in scanning the web so hadn't realised you were on. My neighbours must think I'm mad; cheering "MiMi" at the top of my voice and only a small scrap of sanity stopped me giving the LED TV a big big hug! You always make me smile, and that's hard to do in these times. And your team didn't do badly against what I reckon is the top line in the Graun's stable; Felicity is practically excellent and Oliver has done so much research that his head must be bursting with it. I had such high hopes until the Hybrids round; I was shouting the answers at the screen. But I know from my own experience how much easier it is to answer the questions this side of the screen.

Well done and more! Much more! "MiMi cooks Burmese", a six part series...

Sitwell was hopeless: "food Statto" about sums it up. The problem is that Kirsty Wark can't do banter or lighthearted (or if she can the people who edited the show badly need to be replaced). Apart from the format, host, "expert", set, credits and pacing I thought the show was top notch.

I like the idea of this show and enjoy the questions. However I find Kirsty a really odd choice of presenter for a light hearted show and am bothered by the set featuring IKEA Expedit bookcases (clearly the BBC want everyone to know they are saving money on set designers).

I don't think it's William Sitwell's fault he got given a duff role. The whole balance is wrong. As Platter said, it should have one presenter who can do the quiz, the facts, and the banter. It all felt very staid and joyless.